Does Copyright Have a Place in the Digital Economy?

By Joëlle Farchy
English

Many debates on the economic justifications for copyright have revealed conflicting interests of economic agents, authors, producers and users. Like economic constraints, choices made attest to the importance of historical and social facts that, in different ways, have helped to create a balance between the parties concerned. That balance seems to have been upset by the development of a digital economy which has raised hopes of a proliferation of abundant, costfree and readily available content, in which copyright will simply be the evidence of a past era. Finding a new balance in the digital world seems essential if we are to take advantage of opportunities for rich and diversified diffusion without drying up the sources of creation and cultural production in the medium term. Yet in the short term is seems difficult to get out of a system that is the culmination of a long historical process, in so far as most alternatives proposed are largely to the detriment of users and/or independent producers.

Keywords

Go to the article on Cairn-int.info